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Dark Days in Egypt

Last week, Egypt’s military dictators stormed the offices of a prominent human rights organization and charged Mohamed Morsi, the deposed president, with participating in a fantastical terrorist plot. The news from Egypt has become so unrelentingly bad that it is difficult to see how this nation can recover from a self-inflicted spiral of repression, violence and paranoia.

The move against the human rights group, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, was another sign of the generals’ eagerness to widen their crackdown beyond Islamist supporters of Mr. Morsi to anyone in society who might challenge their authoritarian ways. Heavily armed state security agents detained and beat staff members of the organization during a nine-hour ordeal. They eventually released all of them except Mohamed Adel, a key member of the April 6 movement that helped mobilize the uprising against Hosni Mubarak almost three years ago. All of the April 6 movement leaders have now been jailed, and on Sunday Mr. Adel and two others received three-year prison sentences.

The authorities filed new criminal charges against Mr. Morsi, the democratically elected president who has been detained since he was deposed on July 3, accusing him of a plot that involved killing protesters and leaking state secrets to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. No evidence has been presented, of course. Human rights groups have called the charges preposterous; Mr. Morsi and his alleged collaborators could face the death penalty if convicted.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists listed Egypt as the ninth-worst offender for jailing journalists in 2013, and the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association, which promotes scholarship on the Middle East and North Africa, expressed concern about a “worsening climate for free speech and peaceable assembly” on university campuses in Egypt.

All of this comes as elements of the old order are being revived. On Thursday, an Egyptian court acquitted a Mubarak-era minister, Ahmed Shafiq, of corruption charges in a land deal involving Mr. Mubarak’s two sons, Alaa and Gamal, who were also acquitted but still face other charges.

If it were another country, members of Congress would be furious. Instead, because the United States considers Egypt crucial to regional stability and because of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday approved legislation that would make it easier to resume aid, which was largely suspended after Mr. Morsi was deposed. The generals are almost certain to interpret that as an endorsement of their authoritarian methods.